said to me in the street; “but if it had been made of gold and filled with pearls, it would still have been but a petty gift to that sainted son, who has reformed his father's heart.”
THE LITTLE CLOWN
The whole city is in a tumult over the Carnival, which is nearing its close. In every square rise booths of mountebanks and jesters; and we have under our windows a circus-tent, in which a little Venetian company, with five horses, is giving a show. The circus is in the centre of the square; and in one corner there are three very large vans in which the mountebanks sleep and dress themselves, three small houses on wheels, with their tiny windows, and a chimney in each of them, which smokes continually; and between window and window the baby's swaddling-bands are stretched. There is one woman who nurses a child, prepares the food, and dances on the tight-rope.
Poor people! The word mountebank is spoken as though it were an insult; but they earn their living honestly, nevertheless, by amusing all the world. And how they work! All day long they run back and forth between the circus-tent and the vans, in tights, in all this cold; they snatch a mouthful or two in haste, standing, between two performances. And sometimes, when they get their tent full, a wind arises, wrenches away the ropes and puts out the
